The Nation’s editor and publisher Katrina Vanden Huevel warned that Democrats’ obsession about Russia was a mistake and could torpedo efforts to effectively combat the Trump agenda. Granted, the latter part is typical run-of-the-mill progressive talk, The Nation is a left wing magazine, but in March, Vanden Huevel ripped into Democrats for the Neo-McCarthyite furor that has engulfed the party over Russia. She noted that Russian interference during the 2016 election needs to be investigated, but the political Left has devolved into thinking that mere meetings with Russian officials are akin to treason. Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) seems to think that any meeting with the Russians is not appropriate. This is nonsense. Democrats lost, they need some crutch to lean on because they all thought Hillary was going to win. And there’s no way any person could lose to Trump, unless some sort of covert collusion occurred. One big problem: there is zero evidence of any collusion. Even Hillary is starting to peddle conspiracy theories about the collusion allegations, for which she has zero evidence to back up.
Yet, not shying from her left wing roots, Vanden Huevel added that the Russia Red Scare obsession could hurt Democrats from fighting the “mean-spirited, predatory agenda” of the Republicans (via RCP):
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVAL, "THE NATION": So, of course we need an independent investigation into alleged Russian hacking and collusion.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Alleged?
VANDEN HEUVAL: And we have a special counsel now, which is there. And any president can't be happy to have a special counsel four months into his presidency. But I think Democrats are making a mistake going in Russia, Russia, Russia all the time. For two reasons. One, you're distracting from the Donald Trump and Republicans' mean-spirited, predatory agenda -- tax cuts for the richest, hurting the working class, building a military defense budget, squandering diplomacy, and deregulating the economy for the sake of the richest.
I think Democrats have to have a bold, inclusive, populist agenda. Get it out into the country, fight on health care, fight on jobs, fight on a different engagement with the world. And make sure that the climate issue is understood to be about economics but shafting working people.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So don't let this overtake everything.
VANDEN HEUVAL: Don't let this overtake it. And I think that that's about a party of one that needs to be about proposition, not simply opposition. Resistance is not enough. Building political power will demand something more.
Well, right now, the Democrats don’t even know who the real leader of their party is, so don’t hold your breathe on the alternate agenda front.